


Lord of The Rings Gen(ish) Ficlets, Collected

by Rubynye



Category: Lord of the Rings - Tolkien
Genre: Discussions of death, Ficlet Collection, Gen, Interspecies, Multi, Singing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-18
Updated: 2010-01-18
Packaged: 2017-10-06 10:31:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 2,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/52678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rubynye/pseuds/Rubynye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Assorted LOTR ficlets, mostly hobbits. See notes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Baby Bell Gamgee

**Author's Note:**

> One het story, one slash with mentions of het and femslash, one pre-het, one pre-meet-cute, and several gen, two featuring Sam as a child. Nothing at all explicit.

For the first time in years, Rosie looked at Sam and didn't know his thought. His face was still, the lines set deep, as if he'd been carven from stone; his big hands gently patted the earth over the small grave even after it was even, and she stood on shaky legs, Elanor quietly clinging to her hand, and wondered what was in her husband's heart.

Rosie had chosen the name Bell for their daughter, after all, even though Sam insisted the next should be named after Rosie herself. Did he blame her now for it, now that the baby had died aborning, for not heeding him, for wasting the name? Had she reopened the wound of his mother's loss? She'd only meant....

Rosie sniffled once, but her eyes were red and sore and dry. Sam stood up, dusting off his hands, satisfied the seeds were well settled. He walked back to Rosie with his face closed, his gaze inward, but he wrapped his arm around her waist and kissed her brow. "Come, my lasses," he said, with no reproof or blame. "Fro-lad's waiting, and you've been from bed too long, Rose. Let's go home."


	2. Diamond Took, Pippin Took, and the Jewels of Long Cleeve

"Diamond! Diamond, where are you?" Emerald of Long Cleeve walked back and forth across the lawn before the main doors of Great Smials, rather after the manner of a hunting dog who's lost the scent; as she crossed the lawn, from one wing of the garden to the other and back again, she swung her head back and forth so her ribbons rustled in the breeze, shading her eyes from the afternoon sun. "Diamond! We'll miss tea if you don't come! I know you're hidden here somewhere! Diamond!"

Pippin Took watched Emerald searching from between the thick-hung branches of the cool green willow; he sat in the fork of two large branches, and sitting a little higher, her skirt pale in the grassy dimness and shaking with her silent laughter, was Diamond of Long Cleeve. Pippin, for his part, had both hands pressed to his mouth to keep from laughing out loud, as he and Diamond peered between the willow-leaves and watched Emerald searching.

Finally, Emerald threw up her hands. "All right, then!" she called loudly, in no particular direction. "Go on and miss tea! Mam can't be cross with me, I looked and looked!" She strode back towards the doors, knocking wrathfully, and Pippin and Diamond giggled so hard they had to clutch hands to keep from falling from the tree, which did let the giggles out, hopefully to be muffled by the willow leaves.

When he'd calmed, Pippin looked up at Diamond, who was still laughing, wiping her eyes; he understood well the fun of playing a grand trick on a stuffy eldest sister. And he liked Diamond. She was so tall he often forgot she was four years younger, and she was as up as any lad for roopie and tadpole-catching, pie-stealing and any other sort of fun. Most lasses their age were prissily concerned to keep from mud and warmth and dishevelment, and Pippin could really not see what Merry saw in lasses as a rule, but he thought he might well except Diamond.

She calmed down as he was thinking so, blinking in the dimness and smiling at him; then her eyes went round as another voice came to their ears. "Diamond North-Took!" A firm voice, not very loud, and so all the more commanding. "Come out here." Diamond's mother's voice. "Now."

Pippin shook his head, clutching Diamond's hand. They'd waited her sister out, they could wait out her Mam, and then sneak through the kitchens for biscuits and bread-and-jam, and afterwards he'd show her his favorite sitting room and the book he'd hidden there. But Diamond shook hers back, ducking down, slipping her hand free. Pippin watched her swing down from their branch, climbing down to drop out of the tree, hugging herself though the day was warm.

Her Mam didn't even say a word, just took Diamond's ear-tip in a grip that made her squeak and Pippin wince just from watching, and led her back inside. Pippin set his chin in his hand; he supposed he might go in to tea anytime, but he found himself honestly not really hungry.


	3. Discussion Upon Mistletoe

"Well, how about the time your wild sister pinned mistletoe in her hair, and ran about the ball catching kisses from lad and lass alike?" Merry laughed as he draped himself upside down over Boromir's arm, and all the harder when Pippin sat up with arms indignantly crossed. "The mistletoe you'd picked for her, as i remember."

Pippin pouted adorably for long enough that Merry rolled around laughing and Boromir, flat beneath them, smiled with full ease. But then, Pippin's face changed to kissably sly, and Merry's breath caught. "And what of two Yules before that, when Master Merry had too many ales and tucked a sprig of mistletoe into his belt?"

Boromir guffawed."I heard the hiding Aunt Esme gave you was truly legendary, Merry." Pippin smirked.

"Your arm's breaking my spine, Boromir" Merry groused, squirming till Boromir slid that arm out to wrap it round him. "And Pippin, I will have you know, I was tipsy, so it doesn't count."

They both just laughed at him, till he gave up and laughed too.


	4. Samwise Gamgee's Eleventh Yule

Sam fell into bed on the eve of his eleventh Yule well content. His Mam had made his favorite spiced cakes, even though she was feeling quite poorly, and had sat up with them in the rocking chair and had tea; his brothers and Mr. Frodo had taken him tramping in the morning for a good Yule log and holly and pine boughs to make the smial and Bag End look fine, and after they'd borne all back his sisters had done them up with ribbon and set them all about, and Mr. Bilbo had laughed and laughed with glee and told them tales and led them in songs.

Then it was luncheon and Sam and Mari were so weary they near fell asleep in their dishes, so Mr. Frodo read them a tale. Mari was asleep almost before he said, "Once upon a time," but Sam did his best to listen, even though it got rather muddled in the middle and presently he woke to find Mr. Frodo snuggled up beside them on the rug drowsing too.

And then it was tea-time, and the Rumbles and the Twofoots and friends up from the town and Bywater all came to Bag End, and Sam ran about in the snow with Tom and little Jolly while Mari and little Rosie played at dolls, and someone's Mam sang and someone's Da played the fiddle and it went on so long everyone stayed through dinner and supper. Even Sam's Da smiled, and said nothing cross.

When everyone finally left they went singing with candles, and from the door of Sam's smial they looked like golden stars floating off into the night on clouds of song. Sam said so to his Mam, and she smiled and kissed his brow and sent him to his bed. And so he went, thinking of Mr. Frodo's smile and pine needles and Jolly Cotton laughing and songs, and so went to sleep well content indeed.  
(


	5. Singing in the Midgewater Marshes

"Hoi, Strider!" Pippin called, squelching along as fast as his feet would bear him through the muck. Frodo snorted and set off after the fool young Took, and caught up to him in time to hear, "You're ever and always so quiet!"

"Perhaps he is thinking on how best to guide four wayward hobbits," Frodo said reprovingly, reaching out to tug Pippin away from their guide, but Aragorn smiled, gently and invitingly at once.

Emboldened by that smile, Pippin was not to be denied. "Perhaps he's lonely, with the four of us chattering to each other and saying hardly a word to him! What do you say, Strider? Have we left you alone too much?"

"I do not feel neglected, Pippin, but I would not mind closer company." Indeed, Aragorn had slowed his pace to one a hobbit could hold without trotting.

"Well, that's grand! Let's sing to walk by!" Pippin opened his mouth again, but no song came out. As Frodo watched, his brow creased, and his nose crinkled, and his mouth shut and opened. Above them, Aragorn smiled as if he struggled mightily against a bout of laughter.

"It was your plan, Pippin," Frodo said, at length, lest he laugh as well. "You must pick the song."

"I know!" Pippin waved his arms in consternation. "But the only song in my head's one for winter-drunk ales! _Pile the logs on the fire; Fill the pipes, pass the bowl._ It's a song for warm nights of merry drinking, not these muddy wet marshes." And Pippin looked quite bedraggled and sad at the thought of warmth and merry drinking and the reality of the marshes.

"Well, since we shall be warm and dry again someday," Frodo said hopefully, "perhaps this song will remind us. Give it, Pip."

So Pippin took a deep breath, and began to sing, and Frodo sang with him; soon enough Merry and Sam caught up and joined in, and so did Strider with his warm resonant voice. _But, here by the fire, we defy frost and storm;  
Ha, ha we are warm, and we have our heart's desire.  
For here, we're good fellows, and the beechwood and the bellows;  
And the cup is at the lip in the pledge of fellowship._

[Author's Note: these lyrics are taken from the ["Hanover Winter Song"](http://www.hymnsandcarolsofchristmas.com/Hymns_and_Carols/hanover_winter_song.htm), lyrics by Richard Hovey.]


	6. Frodo, Sam, Biscuits and Books

"Mr. Frodo! Mr. Frodo!"

Deep in a book, Frodo raised his head at the piping call and found little Samwise Gamgee dancing with impatience at his elbow, holding two round brown discs aloft. "Yes, Sam?" Frodo asked muzzily, head still full of the dragon he was reading of and the hero fighting it.

"Mr. Frodo! Look!" Sam thrust his hands forward. Frodo dutifully looked at their contents, which appeared to be and smelled rather like... spiced biscuits.

One might have thought they were gold from a dragon's hoard, the way Sam's round brown eyes shone. "Yes, Sam?" Frodo repeated gently. He was fond of the child, who reminded him a little of his favorite cousin Merry mostly by being equally sunny of disposition and wholly different in any other way, but he'd been reading.

"My Mam's made sweet cakes! With spices as has come long roads!" Sam's voice hushed with wonder, his eyes nearly as big as the biscuits. "It's very dear, the spices and the sugar, and Da calls it a waste, but Mam said we're all so good, we'd earned a treat. And here 'tis! Ain't they fine?"

"Yes, Sam, very fine." Was he really so excited over biscuits? "You should eat them before some misfortune befals them." Such as being dropped, or a bigger lad calling.

"No, Mr. Frodo, I couldn't!" Sam held one hand out over Frodo's. "This one's for you, sir! I brought it special, straight away! How could I eat it?"

Frodo helplessly smiled, and took the biscuit, and laid it down beside the book long enough to draw Sam onto the settee beside him. "Then I shall eat mine, Sam, and you shall eat yours. Tell me, do you like dragons?" Sam's mouth fell open in alarm, and Frodo hastily amended, "In stories, in stories, Sam."

"Suchlike as Mr. Bilbo tells? Oh, yes, Mr. Frodo!"

"Then I shall read you one." Frodo opened his book and carefully took a bite of biscuit, making sure not to drop crumbs. Mrs. Gamgee was indeed a fine baker.


	7. Estella, Diamond, Pippin

Estella's not stuffy. No matter what Pippin Took says. Stuffy lasses don't climb trees, and who wants to play corsairs anyway? Pippin and the lass he's playing with, some fair-haired fourth cousin from the Northfarthing, look like perfect idiots with rags tied over their heads for eyepatches and waving sticks for swords, as they battle imagined Tall Men and storm the next tree over for its plunder of apples. Not that Estella's watching them. She's reading, as the Took lass's golden hair gets draggled at the edges and Pippin gets a clod of mud in his and they fence with their sticks and fall over and laugh, smiles shining. They're getting completely dirty and look to be having a grand time.

Stel's read the last page four times.

Then Pippin looks up, and Stel thought herself hidden, but he says, "and now we'll raid this white-sailed, um, galleon!" and starts to climb her tree, his cousin hitching up her skirts and scrambling right after. Estella catches her breath back from its huff, and starts to climb quickly as she can, but Pippin and his fellow corsair are catching up fast, and she's about to be boarded!

She hears herself think that, and laughs before she thinks.


End file.
